HT Weekly Update: Week-ending Friday 10th November 2023

Friday 10th November 2023

This concise weekly HT Update is generally published every Friday afternoon.   It’s a simple opportunity for you to also feedback/ask questions via the link at the bottom of each Update.  Feedback received, where appropriate, will be responded to and published by Monday afternoon on the school website link.   

Key messages from this week

Calendar:  Next week sees our S4 return from their work experience placements;   on Monday through Wednesday we’ll run our LASSlangs Event where we’ll work with our associated primary schools on a Modern Languages initiative;  Geography Awareness Week runs Wednesday through Friday in Social Studies and on our Social Media feeds; on Wednesday we’ll hold our S4 Parents’ Evening, via Zoom;  on Thursday we’ll hold our in-person Creative Industries Showcase from 6.00pm, see below.

Staffing: Today, highlighted in last weeks’ Update, we said ‘Goodbye and Good Luck’ to Graham Tennet who leaves LHS to take up his new post. From Monday Annie Rankine, PTC English, will assume leadership responsibilities for the Technologies faculty on a short term, interim basis.  Our  permanent appointment, replacing Graham, will take up post in mid-December.  On Monday we also welcome Rachael Paul, Teacher of Biology. 

Multi-faith/Prayer Space:  An area in the school  has been booked for use at both BGEd  and Senior Phase lunch as a space for students, and staff,  to use for prayer. We have struggled to find a suitable, consistent space in recent months and thanks to work through Student Voice and our Humanities Team we have been able to re-propose and dedicate an appropriate space.  Students are aware of procedures through their Google Year Group Classroom. 

Remembrance Assemblies:  This week our students and staff came together as a community in a series of engaging assemblies.  These student led events culminated in a  S6 Assembly today followed by a whole school Minute’s Silence.  On Sunday staff and students will represent the school at the community event in Bonnyrigg.

Creative Industries Showcase: This year’s event, on Thursday 16th November from 6.00pm, is bigger than ever with a dance performance, fashion show, exhibition and awards. We are looking forward to celebrating our students’ creativity and achievements.   It would be great to see as many parents/carers as possible there to support. 

Chromebooks: A reminder that it is a core expectation that students bring their Chromebooks to school with them every day, (your child is kidding you if they say otherwise).  This is reiterated regularly and will be through PSE next week. Where students are not bringing their Chromebooks, the referral system will be used and parents/carers may be contacted for support.

Wider Achievement:  We alerted parents/carers last week that the Autumn 2023  issue of our Wider Achievement Newsletter is now available on our website, click here.  We are also aware that there may have been some issues accessing the newsletter.  We’ve worked with our website developer who thinks the issue may have been volume of traffic.  Refreshing your page when aiming to view the newsletter, particularly, on a mobile device should also help.  

Students out of Class: A reminder that in a continued effort to keep students out of the corridors, we have asked our teachers to not allow students out for breaks between periods of a double period class. This has become a bit of a habit in some areas.  Any short ‘breaks’ in a double period should mean the students remain within the classroom.   

If you have any feedback/questions relating to this update please submit them via the link below

 

Feedback here

Take Care

Campbell Hornell,  Head Teacher

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